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Codfish Toast

A dish of soaked salt codfish mixed with milk, flour, and egg, boiled and served.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Codfish Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the salt codfish overnight in cold water.

  2. In the morning, thicken the milk slightly with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the beaten egg to the milk and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Stir in the soaked codfish and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt codfish
Provides the savory, salty fish flavor that defines the dish once soaked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a creamy sauce.
Flour
Starch thickens the milk as it heats, giving it body.
Egg
Proteins set when heated, adding richness and further thickening to the milk.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg to the milk. Egg proteins set when heated, so pouring it into hot milk without stirring can cause lumps or scrambling. Keeping the mixture moving helps it stay smooth and evenly thickened during the 30-minute boil.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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